12/3/2006

Today’s ride was Gene’s “Wild Oats” route, named for the fact that the snack stop is at Noah’s Bagels, right next to the big Wild Oats store on South Lake Avenue.

It was chilly in the morning, but it was sunny and clear, so it promised to warm up later on. Yesterday was the big USC-UCLA football game, and UCLA won. So Vikki showed up in her full UCLA team kit. Not that she cares about football. But she said that she knew it would annoy any USC fans who saw it.

We started out going east on Sierra Madre, all the way out to Santa Anita. Then we turned south and rode all the way down to South El Monte. There, just before Whittier Narrows, we took a small side trip. There used to be a Nike anti-aircraft missile site in South El Monte. The radar site was on top of a hill a bit to the east, and the missile launch pads were on Potrero Road. Today, it’s an army reserve site and part of Whittier Narrows Park.

We rode through Montebello and then back north into Monterey Park. There were a couple of nice hills, including one steep pitch that was something like 15-18%. Then we headed up into Alhambra.

Along the way, some of us missed a turn, and we ended up shortcutting about a mile off the route by mistake. But that was all right. We headed north through San Marino and up to Wild Oats and Noah’s Bagels.

We got a table outside and had our bagels, while the local pigeons pecked up crumbs around our feet. They seemed to have no fear of people.

The last part of the ride was back to the park, but by a roundabout way. We went south, and then took a small detour to pass the mansion we’d read about in the paper recently. It’s for sale for a mere $52 million. Oddly enough, they didn’t have any “Take One” flyers outside.

From there, we rode back across San Marino, up into Pasadena, and back to the park.